


Doc Watson Was A Hero Bold

by gardnerhill



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution - All Media Types
Genre: Challenge Response, Community: watsons_woes, Crack, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 20:10:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watson has a problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doc Watson Was A Hero Bold

**1.**

Mr. Mycroft Holmes was not appreciative of being roused from his slumber a full three and one-half minutes prior to his customary seven o'clock a.m.

"There's something drastically wrong with Watson," his younger brother said as an introduction, walking directly into Mycroft's bedroom.

"I've been saying that for years, my boy," Mycroft rumbled, irritatedly groping for his pince-nez. "Where the devil are those dratted – ah, there we go." Sitting up against his headboard, an ornate oak piece depicting scenes from the life of Niccoló Macchiavelli, the elder Holmes folded his massive arms over his royal blue silk pyjamas and fixed the disheveled Sherlock with a glare. "Hmph! He's run out of your lodgings less than an hour ago, screaming something about orphans, I believe. Or possibly nuns. No," he amended himself, taking a second look at Sherlock's right forefinger, "it was orphans."

"And I need to know where he's gone!" the younger snapped peevishly, dismissing his brother's genius with the wild wave of a hand. "You can't take ten steps without tripping over an orphanage in this town." He pulled his other hand out of his dressing-gown pocket and held out a well-used briar pipe.

Mycroft sniffed the stem end, rubbed a pinch of the half-burnt ship's tobacco through his hair, licked the under-curve of the bowl. "Barnardo's."

Sherlock was already gone from the room, whipping past the surprised and disapproving valet entering the room with Mycroft's first breakfast on a tray.

"For years," Mycroft sighed, and nodded a greeting to his man. "Dreadfully sorry about that hubbub, Jeeves."

"If I may be so bold, sir, your brother has no more manners than my Reggie," the valet said. "But my lad has the excuse of being just two years old."

"The man hasn't changed much since he _was_ two." Mycroft uncovered the first tray, and made a face. " And the swine's stolen my kippers!"

**2.**

"No, mister, we really truly aren't in danger right now," the grubby boy said. His older friend sniggered; the fat boy looked anxiously around for someone resembling a sensible adult; the little one only glared at everything, keeping one hand jammed in a pocket which seemed to be writhing.

"You're quite sure?" said the haggard-looking and wild-eyed man in the once-white dressing gown and slippers, fingers gripping the iron bars of the gate. His hair was disheveled and his moustache bristled like a walrus'. "No fire in the upper storeys? No attack of yellow fever? No duck-pond for children fall into? No railway nearby where you get stuck on the tracks?"

"Blimey, he's gone missing from Colney Hatch or I'm a Dutchman," the fat boy muttered, groping in his own pocket.

"Well, troof is I really need a shillin' right now, guvner," the older boy said soberly. "So if you could see yore way clear to – "

The fat boy screamed and jumped a foot in the air. A snake was clutched in his fat fist. The little boy howled with laughter, waving a battered sandwich at him. "Did a little swap while you wasn't looking, Joe!"

"Oh merciful God, that poor angel will be bitten by that viper!" cried the man, who shook the bars so loudly they rang like compline. "For God's sake, let me in!"

All the kids leaped back from the gate advertising Dr. Barnardo's Benevolent Home for Poor Orphans. "Angel, 'e says," the tall boy snickered. "You pore angel, you!"

"A aingel, he is!" the little boy sneered.

"Bit fat for a angel, 'es a Cupid!" the grubby boy guffawed.

"Stop it, Tom! Bert, stoppit!" the fat boy wailed, glaring daggers at the man outside who'd just saddled him with an unspeakable nickname for the duration of his time here. He threw the offending reptile right at the man. "An' it's only a bloody grass snake, you great tit. Scared me, is all."

"Don't panic, my lad, I'm coming! I'll save you!"

And to all the orphans' horror, the madman began to climb the wrought-iron gate.

Every one of them, even the tall boy, tore across the grounds screaming for the matron.

The snake, freed from the reptile Hell of a ten-year-old boy's pocket, took off like a ripple of light for the nearest body of water, vowing a life of monasticism in gratitude for his freedom.

**3.**

"Watson?"

The haggard man looked up at Holmes from his seat in the Quiet Room of the orphanage. His hands were bound in front of him with a bootlace. "He's all right, Holmes," he said calmly. "The poor little blighter had got hold of a snake, you see. I had to save him."

Mycroft had been mistaken – it had been nuns and orphans. The bruising on the side of Watson's face was the unmistakeable stamp of a ferule, and at a particular angle. Only a member of the Sisters of Mercy order left such a distinct mark.

Holmes put a hand on his friend's shoulder and smiled. "Well done, old man."

Watson held out his bound hands. "I seem to have run into a bit of trouble myself. Sorry you had to come and save me."

"A trifle," Holmes said, cutting the lace with his pocket-knife and helping Watson to his feet. The truth was that they both looked a bit raggedly mad, both in their dressing-gowns and dirty and mussed.

But Watson was the one who was truly mad. And it was Holmes' fault.

_Cornwall, two months ago. That cursed Devil's Foot root. And my even more cursed curiosity about its effects. He saved my life – as if I deserved it._

Watson had saved both their lives, wrestling Holmes and himself out the door and away from the horrors brought by the fumes. They'd both seemed well, at first. But John Watson had never truly been the same since that time.

Holmes kept the smile on his face and ignored the twisting pain in his heart, as he'd had to do more and more often these days, and pulled something greasy and redolent out of his inner pocket. "Let's go back, old fellow. We hadn't finished our breakfast and you must be famished. Have a kipper."

**4.**

WRONG STOP NUNS AND ORPHANS BOTH STOP SH

CHILDISH MY BOY STOP HOW IS HE STOP MH

AT HOME STOP GETTING WORSE STOP SH

YOU CONCUR WITH MY THEORY QUERY MH

HYPER-COMPETENCE WITH BORDERLINE HEROISM QUERY SH

HIS NATURE EXAGGERATED BY RADIX PEDIS STOP MH

REGRETFULLY CONCUR STOP SH

HE DESPERATELY NEEDS TO BE HEROIC QUERY MH

JW CANNOT LEAVE 221 WO RESCUING SOMEONE STOP SH

PHYSICALLY PAINFUL FOR HIM NOT TO TRY STOP SH

ONE MIGHT CALL IT HEROINE ADDICTION STOP MH

NASTY PIECE OF WORK BROTHER MY STOP SH

NEED ADVICE NOT PARANOMASIA STOP SH

GO TO VIENNA STOP MH

**5.**

They managed to make it to Waterloo station with only one disembarkment (Watson leaped out to pull away a beggar dangerously close to the cab-horse's hooves) and halted just short of the station so both Holmes and Watson could stop a beating in progress in a nearby alley. "I've warned you not to work this street, Algie," Holmes said while Watson banged heads together, pulling the Irregular to his feet. "I doubt you'll need a repeat lesson."

Algie swiped at his bloody nose. "Nossir." He tore off and was gone.

"Watson?"

Pow. Thud. The doctor reappeared, rubbing his knuckles and grinning like a love-sodden fool. No, it was worse; Holmes had seen that dazed, beatific smile on his own face whilst deep in the throes of a cocaine injection. The sooner they were to the Continent and en route to Austria the better. "Got them, Holmes!"

"Our train will be here soon, Watson. Come along."

But as Holmes turned towards the station, a dark sinister figure caught the corner of his eye, further down the alley and perfectly silhouetted against the daylight at the other end. Caped, his tall hat perched on his broad head unmistakeable, every movement serpentine. Holmes felt the chill down his spine; he could practically hear the thoughts of that grimly gloating man:

_In good time, Mr. Holmes. We will soon settle all questions that still lie between us. In good time._

BANG.

The silhouette flew back and crumpled against the wall.

Blinking, his ears still ringing, Holmes turned to the sound of that noise.

Watson blew away smoke from the barrel of his revolver. "I couldn't miss at this range – and the idiot presented a perfect target. Our train's coming, old man, let's go!"

Dazed (by more than the gunfire so close to his ear), Holmes did what he was told. He stared back at his genius nemesis – whose unique and relentless criminal brain was presently decorating a brick wall.

Hyper-competence, Watson's mental affliction was called. A relentless, inexorable urge to be heroic.

And a flicker of a thought ran through Holmes' brain as he followed Watson up the steps, past the curious people flocking to the alley to see what the noise was about:

_"Doctor, my wife thinks she's a chicken!"_  
"So you want me to cure her?"  
"Well, we would, but we need the eggs." 

**6.**

Stephansdom was magnificent, as was all the architecture around them. In the Kaisergruft Watson became quiet and sad before the immense bronze sarcophagus shaped like a marriage bed in which sat bronze likenesses of the Empress Maria Theresa and Francis Stephen, guarding their remains with this reminder of a royal marriage made for love. Holmes touched Watson's hand and received a grateful look from his wet, full eyes. Watson accepted the offer of a handkerchief and made use of it quickly. He would always love and miss Mary.

At a Heuriger they drank new wine and at the Hotel Sacher sampled their famous torte. This last venue ended poorly, however, as Watson dashed into the kitchen to put out a suspiciously high fire and dashed out just as quickly, coughing in the smoke and pursued by an angry chef waving a knife and screaming about der verdammt Englischherren. Holmes paid and got out.

He found Watson hiding behind the lantern-jawed image of an extremely inbred-looking emperor on a public fountain. "A fat lot of gratitude he showed me," Watson sniffed as he descended, his clothes still smoldering and vaguely redolent of schnitzel.

Holmes patted Watson's shoulder, both to reassure him and to put out his coat. "I'm afraid we've done enough holidaying, my boy. Back to business."

Business they would have at Bergasse 19.

 **7.** *

"Herr Doktor Watson, can you hear me?" The specialist spoke perfect English with an Austrian accent, blurring the "W" to a soft "V."

"I hear you." Watson's half-lidded eyes no longer followed the swinging watch.

"Good. You are safe here. Nothing can harm you. Tell me about Cornwall, Herr Doktor."

Slowly, haltingly, Watson spoke about that day in the cottage. The terrible drug that had killed and maddened four people, smouldering on the lamp, filling the air of their room. The horror that filled him; the horror he saw mirrored in the face opposite him.

"He was going to die," Watson murmured, tears streaming down his face. "I couldn't save him. I can't save him. Can't stop his cocaine. Can't stop him testing this poison on himself. Not alone, I won't let him do this alone. What kind of doctor can't save his friend? What kind of soldier can't save his comrade? I can't save him."

"So you save everyone else," Dr Freud said gently. "Because you can't save the one person who matters most to you."

"I would die if it would stop him," the man wept. "But I can't. I can't."

"There is no need for that, Doctor. Your friend is safe from harm. You have saved him yourself. You have brought him to the one place he needs to be. Rest, Herr Doktor; you have saved your patient. At ease, soldier; your comrade is safe."

Gradually, the agitated man quieted, with only a sniff here and there.

"That is good, Herr Doktor. Now all you need to do is sleep. When I count down from five, you will go to sleep and rest. When you awake, you will remember nothing of this talk. But you will know that you have saved your friend; there is no need to save the whole world in his place. Five. Four. Three..."

Only when his patient was peacefully sleeping on the chaise did Dr. Freud turn to look at the white-faced man all but huddled in the far corner of his office.

"He wanted you in the room for this," Freud said, in the same soft tone; there was no recrimination nor accusation in his voice. "He must have known, in his unconscious, why the drug affected him the way it did.

"I do not blackmail my patients nor their caretakers, Herr Holmes. What I do is offer my assistance. I have had some success in weaning people off cocaine addiction - myself included. If you wish to accept the offer of my services, they are offered as freely as I have made them to your friend, in gratitude for the better world you both have made through your work."

***  
* Sandbox attribution: I am infinitely and eternally grateful to Nicholas Meyer, author of _The Seven-Per-Cent Solution_ (1974) – one of the finest Sherlock Holmes stories ever written – and in whose pastiche I wrote.

**8.**

They wound up spending the summer in Vienna – though after the first month both men insisted on taking a nearby flat rather than impose upon the Freuds. Holmes' treatment was a longer, more painful road than Watson's, who after the first six weeks was able to walk through the city and calmly watch laughing children playing within inches of cart-horse's hooves and wheels without charging in to rescue them. But since Holmes had committed himself voluntarily and fully to this pursuit – and had the whole-hearted support of two physicians behind him – it was a painful road he negotiated with all the stoic stubbornness of an English gentleman.

During his convalescence, Holmes took to prowling outside at night, looking for anything in the way of an interesting crime to divert his mind away from cocaine. This may or may not have led to the result that the Bergasse was the sole street in Vienna to be completely spared a rash of burglaries in July. Freud's neighbors blessed their luck; the physician puffed a cigar with his patient and decided that they needed the eggs.

Watson did not join Holmes on his nighttime forays; he did not want to trigger a relapse of his hyperheroism when his mind was in such teetering health. He stayed in with Dr. Freud, talking shop.

"Oh, it seemed the best way to get into the Army as an officer," Watson said, examining his cards. "My father traveled a good deal when I was a lad, and I'd gained the taste for it. And a doctor had a bit more freedom and status than a foot-soldier." Wryly he pointed with his pipe-stem toward his shoulder. "This finally cured me of my wanderlust."

Freud smiled and took a card. "I was eight years old when a scarlet fever epidemic hit Vienna. Not one family was spared. In less than a month half my playmates were either dead or damaged for life. Among the dead was our physician. The next year I entered the Gymnasium – and I already knew I would take the place of that dead man."

Watson nodded solemnly. He'd seen bad runs of influenza and scarlet fever, but he prayed he would never need to know how to handle a citywide – let alone countrywide - epidemic. And if there had not been that epidemic…would there have been a Dr. Freud to cure his friend of his addiction?

"Herr Holmes is doing very well," Freud answered the question Watson was about to ask, and Watson wondered if Freud had learned more than English from reading the stories about his friend. "I've rarely had a more strong-willed patient – and thank God he's turned it to work with me. He will always miss the drug, I'm afraid. I do even now. But his is a productive life and he has a strong family support. He will find ample compensation for not taking cocaine."

"He will." Watson took up his glass of port. " _Salud_."

Freud touched his own glass to Watson's. " _L'chaim_."

The doorbell tinkled merrily and Holmes returned, dour-looking. "Dr. Freud, your neighborhood is as peaceful and calm as a mausoleum."

Watson stroked his upper lip with one forefinger to hide his grin at the petulant tone.

"I'm afraid there is only one cure for that, Herr Holmes," Freud said sympathetically, though his eyes twinkled.

Holmes nodded. "I must return to London, where no doubt the criminal element has happily worked itself into an insufferable frenzy with my absence and with the death of their ringleader."

Freud's and Watson's eyes met. "You're quite right, old fellow," Watson said. "It's high time we went home."

**9.**

Doc Watson was a hero bold –  
Too bold, his friend would say.  
His mind was cleft by Devil's Foot  
To hunt for trouble, there to put  
Himself straight in the fray.

The orphanage was safe, all told,  
But Doc knew what to do.  
He leaps the fence, the children run,  
Then he was struck down by a nun –  
That deed, his Waterloo.

Now Mycroft his idea sold  
To Sherlock. It was sure;  
By train and boat and train again  
To Austria's lovely jewel, Vienn' –  
And therein lay the cure.

For Sigmund will their secrets hold  
And treat them both, each man;  
Now John's stopped goading men to fight  
And Sherlock won't shoot up each night –  
They're grateful he's a fan.

The elder Holmes seems stern and cold  
But loves in his own way;  
Two birds, one stone and both are saved  
With no sweat lost nor danger braved –  
Smart Brother wins the day!

**10.**

Cornwall. Cliffs and wind and cold and birds, and the nonstop pounding of the sea. Both stood on a craggy cliff not far from their cottage.

"You don't have to do this, old man," Watson said.

"Which is precisely why I should," Holmes replied. In a windup that would have made him a prize on any cricket team, he flung his morocco case far out and wide into the sea. (The hypodermic syringe drifted for years and then decades, as the case rotted away, until a century's gentle sea-travel deposited it on the New Jersey shore.)

"You're the strongest and bravest man I know," Watson said.

"I beg to differ," Holmes said. "I have the honour of knowing that gentleman."

"Then we must agree to disagree on that point," Watson said jovially.

They returned to their picnic luncheon spread on a blanket nearby and sat on the grass. Holmes picked up a jam sandwich and dropped it again with an oath, examining his finger.

Watson leaped over, heart in his throat for a split-second before reminding himself (as he did daily) that they were both safe and untroubled by danger. "Holmes, what is it?"

"It is a bee-sting, nothing more," Holmes said dismissively. "They have discovered the preserves."

Indeed, a small party of the little furry insects had seemingly colonized their open pot of strawberry jam.

"Ugh, little vermin!" Watson picked up a serviette to shoo away the tiny thieves.

But Holmes held up his hand to stop his friend. He was watching their movements. And there was an intent focus on his face that Watson had only before seen in the midst of his cases. "Look, Watson. They seem to be…dancing. Are they celebrating their find? Are they communicating with each other? And what role does the queen play in this, if any?" He had seemingly forgotten all about his stung hand – or their luncheon, or the fact that he had just destroyed his syringe.

Bees. Such a small thing to occupy such a great brain.

Watson spread the serviette on his lap and poured tea, and decided that the blessed little things could have all the jam they wanted.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the LJ comm Watson's Woes July 2011 amnesty prompts at the end of the challenge month. The ten prompts in order are:  
> 1\. Begin your prompt fill with one of the following:  
> * Icy pavements and oblivious pedestrians were not ideal conditions for active pursuit of a criminal.  
> * Mr. Mycroft Holmes was not appreciative of being roused from his slumber a full three and one-half minutes prior to his customary seven o'clock a.m.  
> * "While I appreciate your defending my honor, to do so against three gentlemen twice your size errs on the side of foolhardiness."
> 
> 2\. Railway, white, snake, jump, sandwich. Use all five words in your fic.
> 
> 3\. Pivotal plot point, aka The Road Less Traveled. Take a scene, either from a known canon or one of your own stories, and re-write that scene into an AU, with one or more characters making a radical change from their previous behavior. Show how one decision can swing the pendulum completely the opposite direction.
> 
> 4\. Epistolary fic, post-it note style. Write an epistolary fic, but each portion of the fic can only be a line or two long; the amount of words one could fit on a post-it note. Whether you want to use text messaging, scraps of paper, table napkins, actual post-its, or whatever, the bits can only be a sentence or two at a time. If you want to do an art post, with actual sticky notes, then by all means go for it!
> 
> 5\. Actions speak louder than words; ergo, breaking someone's nose is a much more effective means of communicating than verbal riposte. Use that however it inspires you.
> 
> 6\. Gratuitous and shameless H/C/Schmoop. Cosy firelight, fuzzy slippers, hot tea, fleecy blankets, small gestures, kittens and unicorns, whatever brings out the schmooper in you.
> 
> 7\. Playing in another sandbox. Choose a fanwork (anything from published pastiche to something right here on LJ or ff.net) and write a scene inspired by it, missing from it, or in that universe. It's fanfic of a fanfic, in other words. 
> 
> 8\. Natural disaster and its consequences. Whether that's flood, hurricane, forest fire, earthquake (San Fran, 1906, anyone?), volcano, or whatever - use a natural disaster in some way.
> 
> 9\. Rhyme. Crackfic or not, true poetry or not, your entire fic must in some way rhyme. You may waive the 100-word minimum for this prompt.
> 
> 10\. Alpha/Omega - write a fic in which there is a beginning of something, and an end of something.


End file.
